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There is a little movie-set parable that says it all.

The tour guide stops his trolley on the Universal Studios back lot. Three craftsmen are hammering and sawing and painting away. The guide says, “Hey, what are you all doing?” The first one says, “What do you think? I’m painting a wall.” The second one says, “I’m doing okay; I’m making a living.” Then, covered from head to toe in paint, the third one looks up, and she says, “I am making our summer blockbuster.” She was the one who had a sense of the bigger picture and fully owned her part as a creator.
Over my desk hangs a hand-painted card by the writer J. Stone that says, “The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. They neither paint nor sculpt. Their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life.”
That is the potential this book can serve to unlock or amplify, tapping great reservoirs of positive energy that you can use all kinds of ways, whether toward the completion of a creative project or in the way you approach your next conversation. Whatever you choose to create, at the root is always the opportunity to become the artist of being alive.

THE CALL OF YOUR REAL WORK

I had a wonderful dog for many years whose name was Siri. When Siri would drag me around on our walks, he would focus all his senses on these invisible trails, like ley lines emanating from the earth, signaling new and exhilarating possibilities just around the next bend. With his nose to the ground, he would eagerly chase these mysterious trails. As I watched him, Siri seemed an expression of pure creative force—entirely unconscious, of course; instinctive but with his nose to the call, ever alert to the grand evolutionary creative turning of things. Here was this beautiful little dog who was, in his own four-legged way, on a hero’s journey. Locked on to the trail with no guarantee as to where he would end up, but ready to be transformed by life.
When I am fully engaged in creative work, when my nose is to the trail and I am locked on to the call, I can feel it. And when I lose connection with that impulse and go off course, I feel that, too.
This book is designed to help you find your trails and to follow them. These are the trails that lead to your deepest fulfillment as a creator. You have a purpose, a mission, and a calling that is uniquely your own. The Sufi poet Rumi goes directly to the heart of the matter in his discourse on finding and claiming your real work:
There is one thing in this world that must never be forgotten. If you were to forget all else, but did not forget that, then you would have no reason to worry. But if you performed and remembered everything else, yet forgot that one thing, then you would have done nothing whatsoever.
It’s as if a king sent you to the country to carry out a specific task. If you go and accomplish a hundred other tasks, but do not perform that particular task, then it is as though you performed nothing at all. So everyone comes into this world for a particular task, and that is their purpose. If they do not perform it, then they will have done nothing.
It is as if you were given a sword of priceless Indian steel, and you were to treat it as a butcher’s knife for cutting up putrid meat. . . . Or it is like taking a solid gold bowl to cook turnips in, when a single grain of that gold could buy a hundred pots. Or it is as if you took a Damascene dagger of the finest temper to hang a broken gourd from, saying, “I am making good use of it . . . I am not letting this dagger go to waste.”
From Discourses of Rumi, Discourse Four, original translation by A. J. Arberry
Your real work, of course, isn’t confined to your job title or description alone. It might include your professional vocation, but it does not start or stop there.
If you are unclear at the moment as to what your real work is or if you feel that the signals of your creative impulses are scrambled, the principles and practices in this book will assist you in gaining clarity. And if you feel creatively blocked, stalled along the shoulder of the creative highway, it will help you to jumpstart your creative engine.
Your creative capacity is greater than you know. Even if you are already prolific and productive, you can become even more so. You will find your real work in your values and what matters most to you; in your creative ambitions; in your skills and abilities; and, of course, in your strengths, talents, and gifts. As you clarify these facets of your creativity throughout the book, simultaneously you will be building the courage and commitment to express them.

THE EMOTIONAL POWER THAT FUELS CREATIVITY

What does it take to tend to every part of your life more creatively? To lock on to the creative call? To harness a personal creativity that can touch the whole world? It requires becoming connected to your passion, to your excitement, and to your enthusiasm. From that connection comes the desire to contribute and to make change.
It also requires that you check under the hood, explore the subtle nature of creativity. Energy is more powerful than the thing being created, no matter what that “artifact” might be. Whether the creation is a nonprofit organization, a book of poetry, a friendship, or a new perception, it is the resonance of that creation that we are really seeking—the frequency, which comes from what we think, what we feel, and what we express through our emotions. In the pages of this book, you will learn how to tune in to your emotions with ease and creatively shift frequencies at will, not as a reaction to extrinsic factors but intentionally, from the inside out.
HOW TO WORK WITH THIS BOOK
The more inspired and innovative you are, the better off the world is. I offer this book as both a practical support structure and a reminder that your creative dreams matter—whatever they may be. If you already know what those dreams are, this book will help you to fulfill them. And if you aren’t clear about your creative dreams right now, you will be soon.
The framework of the book is a diverse selection of exercises—techniques, processes, rituals, and creative tools. In addition to the exercises each chapter contains, you will also find others in the spaces between certain chapters. Each one can augment the power of your discovery process. Together, these exercises form the latticework on which your creativity can grow and flourish. Whether you like big, blank pages or the architecture of lines, I recommend getting your favorite kind of notebook for devoting to this exploration—your journal of doing and being.
Starting in the first chapter, you will find that all the exercises are designed to activate creativity by jostling the connections of your subconscious and conscious minds. They jiggle the strings of your usual ways of thinking, feeling, and perceiving so that something new can occur. This is important because our conscious mind is always looking to string things together. We are devoted to the straight line, with logical and reasonable connections and explanations, but creativity comes from a “place” that is entirely unconstrained by any lines—that is where we are going.
Imagine there are two kinds of lives: the life we are given and the life we create. The life we are given is the one that is shown to us by our parents and caregivers. They demonstrate for us how to live, love, and relate to the world. They make the distinctions that determine the boundaries between what is practical and realistic versus what is quixotic and dreamy. We are not specifically schooled in these. We adopt them automatically.
For my parents’ generation, life was laid out. You got a job, raised a family, received the gold watch, and retired. That linear trajectory is not the life that most of us lead today. Cause does not lead to effect the same way it did in the past. Nowadays, we frequently find ourselves in unpredictable chaos, moving with both excitement and trepidation through various jobs, vocations, and relationships. While we enjoy the ability to reinvent ourselves at will, most of us occasionally long for the kind of predictability our parents had.
Nevertheless, we can venture beyond the life we are given to a life we create, unbound by hand-me-down conventions modeled for us by others. A created life looks different. Friends and colleagues who work with these practices maintain longevity and aliveness no matter what their chronological age is. They focus more on where they are going than where they have been, and they always seem to have all the luck—though luck has nothing to do with it.

The Power of Practice

As you use these exercises with consistency, you establish a creativity practice. Practice is like the guardrails on the side of the highway that keep you on the road. Practice keeps you focused and heading toward your desired destination. The attention and commitment to practice allows your creativity to persist and not to dissipate. Without practice, our creative thoughts, insights, and ambitions seem to float away like tumbleweed in the wind—nice ideas that never go anywhere. Practice grounds us; it allows our ideas and ambitions to take root and grow.
Making Time for Creativity
Set a formal practice time every day. When you wake up in the morning you brush your teeth and comb your hair; that is a practice. Without that practice, your teeth would fall quickly into a bad state. Apply the same diligence and commitment to your creativity practice. Find your own timing and cadence, but know that it is imperative that you honor your creativity in the same way that you honor your health and grooming.
Beyond simply setting aside time, you have to create time. Time does not exist unless you create it. Whenever we pursue a creative goal or endeavor with intentionality, with a closeness that generates a different kind of rapport with our experience, magic happens. We create time through the power of our intention and presence. Our grandmothers knew this when they used to say, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” They understood that busy people are passionate people. “Losing track of time” is a hallmark of passionate action. Time is an ally that can be as slow or fast as you need it to be.
When has this has happened to you? You are passionate about putting in your tulips, or writing copy for your new website. When you look up from your passion hours have flown by. You have temporarily suspended your relationship to the clock, and productivity is the result.
Your relationship with time is much more fluid and dynamic than you think it is. You can consciously develop a new kind of partnership with the clock through intention and presence born of passion.
Your Creative Workspace
What separates the real creator from the wannabe? Commitment. Set up your creative workspace so that it reminds you of your commitment every time you step into it. Simple additions and attention to detail can put you in the mood to create. Here are some ideas to consider:

Play music you love.

Light a candle.
Add flowers or a living plant.
Declutter and organize your space.
Open a window to let some fresh air move through.
Add a new lamp to shed a warm light on your creative work.
Choose an object for your creative space that represents your commitment to your creativity, something personally meaningful to you. It could be a stone, a crystal, a piece of art, or a photo of someone who inspires your creativity.

Your Creative Helpmate

Treat this book as a helpmate and resource. You can read it cover to cover or drop in on any page for a boost, like a creative I Ching, the classic Chinese text for gaining clarity through intuitive investigations. These pages are a distillation of everything I know about creativity; together they comprise an expansive toolkit of creativity principles and techniques.
I cannot claim every one of the tools in this kit as my own, although they have added immeasurably to my creative life. I have learned from many fabulous teachers along the way. For those tools and techniques derived from people whose names are mentioned and for those whose source I no longer remember, I am grateful.
I hope that, by working with this material, you will find your own creative process less mysterious than you thought it was and more productive and fulfilling than you ever imagined.
CHAPTER 1

Freedom from Conditioning

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher
and pupil are located in the same individual.
—BEATRIX POTTER

Creativity matters to everyone, but conventional wisdom holds that creativity is the special gift of poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and other culturally ordained elites and that there are limited outlets for creative energy.

My view is that everything is a process of creativity. Maybe you’re not interested in creating a comedy routine, a symphony, or an off-Broadway play, but you probably have a desire to create loving relationships, a vibrantly healthy lifestyle, or perhaps a business as an outlet for your skills and interests. Business is one of the primary forms of creative expression in our culture today. Although you might feel blocked or uninspired from time to time, you can’t really stop the flow of this force. Each of us is always a creator, and we are all creating all of the time. When we let in the implications of that, it changes everything. We discover that everything matters. What we think, what we feel, what we believe, what we say, what we choose, and what we do—these are the instruments we use to create and shape our lives.
BECOMING A SOLUTION-MAKER
Creativity is worth our attention, as well, for reasons that reach beyond our own lives. We all sense that we are living in a world that is changing at lightning speed. Some days it seems as if we are in the third quarter of an endless game and hopelessly behind. To meet the challenges of a world that is becoming new, to effectively address problems that appear to have too few solutions, creativity must be awakened. We need innovative responses and new skills. From business and politics to the way we tend to our personal lives, we need to stretch our imaginations beyond outmoded practices.
This requires an education in creativity itself. Opening our eyes to new potentials, creativity gives us the fuel to transcend conditioned ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Nothing and no one is left behind when we lead creatively.
Fortunately, we can all become “weapons of mass creation.” It is the birthright of every human being. There are solutions in the making, and some of them may very well come from you.
First, it is important to find out how we have gotten ourselves into a creative straitjacket . . . and what it takes to get out of it.
A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CREATIVITY
A common assumption about creativity is that you must have conflict for it to emerge. I am as responsible as anyone for propagating this notion, along with most of my entertainment industry friends and colleagues. In particular, comedians and comics say, “If I don’t have my neuroses to feed on, then I’m afraid my creativity will dry up.”
Freud had a big hand in building this thought structure, but it reduces us to mere vehicles of expression of our neuroses. Not long after Freud, Carl Jung said that creativity is the expression of a duality of functions: it’s both personal and an expression of the underlying archetypes that reflect our collective human experience. Archetypes are universal patterns of energy that transcend time and place and contain the raw power at the heart of all our stories of love and courage. In the popular mind, certain archetypes are widely recognized, such as the lover, hero, warrior, judge, as well as the artist. Jung’s view affirms the individuality of the artist, yet recognizes that he or she is also an instrument in service of more powerful forces.
Abraham Maslow placed creativity in the top tier of his hierarchy of needs, after all other needs have been met—after shelter, safety, security, love, belonging, and self-esteem. Inside his model, creativity exists within the domain of self-actualization, a need that one can’t understand until all of the other needs have been fully mastered. I understand why Maslow would prioritize hunting down your next meal before going to the dance around the bonfire. But it’s my view that going to the dance first might bring the creative inspiration needed for a fruitful hunt. Engaging your creative urges is causative; it creates more flow in relation to meeting your needs. Dance itself is a creative and generative act. Only through creative acts can we rise above our conditioning.
That is a really big one to let in.
Picasso said that creativity is, first of all, an act of destruction. Creativity first shatters our conditioning, our unexamined beliefs, and our assumptions, which naturally exposes how much we take for granted.
I often look at how much I take for granted, how much I am a product of my conditioning. I would like to ask you to do the same.
If you were to draw me an alien from another dimension, you would probably create something wonderful and weird, but it would likely be vaguely humanoid, like something from the bar scene in Star Wars. More than 99 percent of the time, that is what happens. And while there is nothing wrong with that imagery, why not draw something we wouldn’t recognize as a life form at all?

STRUCTURED IMAGINING

The reason we tend to draw inside the lines is because we have inherited those lines and perspectives. We are products of our families, peer groups, schools, entertainment streams, and religions. We are shaped by the movies, TV shows, songs, news bites, stories, and art forms offered to us by other people—expressions of the tragedies and triumphs that seem to dictate the reach of our imagination. Some call this structured imagining, which is our unconscious adoption of other people’s thinking, feeling, beliefs, and values. We are mostly unaware that we have acquired a hand-me-down worldview.
If structured imagining is a major block to conscious creativity, how can we ever create anything beyond our conditioning? First, we need to understand the power of conditioning. The following demonstration will make the point.
Right now, wherever you are sitting, lift your right foot a few inches off the ground and then start moving it in a clockwise circle. At the same time as you’re doing that, raise your right hand and draw a number six in the air.
What happened? Your right foot switched directions, didn’t it? Try it again. The reversal will happen every time!

BRAIN PATTERNING—OLD AND NEW

The implications of this exercise are that our habituated patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving become a part of our brain chemistry. As we repeatedly activate the same neural pathways, we reinforce our current understanding of creativity and of ourselves.
In business settings, this can be seen in the creative framework that makes up a company culture. Although corporations pride themselves on having cultures, they are often, though not always, based on longstanding values and ingrained approaches to facing change.
A good illustration of this comes out of post–World War II Japan. As Japanese manufacturers turned their attention from military goods to civilian goods, they focused on improving not only their products but every organizational process as well. They effectively reshaped the manufacturing of electronics and cars and served as an example that led to the introduction of Japanese-style manufacturing in the United States. The core message of what became known as the Quality Revolution was that, by improving quality, companies would decrease expenses and increase productivity and market share. Although this philosophy was an unprecedented advance over previous patterns of thinking and responding to change, it was nonetheless an improvement of past practices rather than a quantum leap forward. It still existed inside the framework of what we already know, and what we already know is only a fraction of what is possible.
The jump to altogether new territory can be seen in the shift from snail mail to email, for instance, or in the difference between manufacturing using metal lathes and 3-D printing. These are not simply creative improvements, better versions of what was. They are disruptive advances that we call innovations.
Innovation is the discovery of anything that is beyond the horizon of what is—whether a new invention, a company, a marriage, or a self. We can get wedged inside structured imagining and miss out on innovation because the patterns of structured imagining are hardwired into our circuitry, but there are many things we can do to positively alter our brain chemistry. Throughout this book, as you work with the raw materials of your thoughts, beliefs, choices, decisions, attitudes, feelings, and emotions, you will be rewiring your creative neuronet. You will be working with each of these in fun and engaging ways, through discussion, processes, and practice. When we consciously make a new habit through practice, new brain patterning follows and old patterns begin to atrophy.
In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell describes what he calls the 10,000-Hour Rule. Gladwell makes the case that it takes a lot of practice to master a skill, from the Beatles performing live in Germany, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time over a period of four years to an adolescent Bill Gates gaining access to a high school computer and spending more than 10,000 hours learning the art of programming. Any parent knows the rapport that children have with their digital devices, having surpassed 10,000 hours with ease, dwarfing the skill level of their parents.
But more important than the specific number of hours devoted to an activity is consistency. Committed practice develops mastery. Whether learning to tie your shoes, pilot a plane, or communicate effectively in relationships, after a point of repetition new habits and new brain circuits allow you to do these things with excellence. You develop a new talent or skill by focusing attention on it and establishing a practice around it. This is one of the great secrets of all creative processes, and a major purpose behind each exercise in this book.
Taking the Lid Off Structured Imagining—A Self-Inquiry Practice

The more that we as creators become aware of the limitations of our structured imagining, the more power and choice we have to move beyond it. Just as we can’t sell a house that we don’t own, we can’t be free of structured imagining until we become aware that we have been structured by it.

This awareness is the first critical piece of opening to your fuller potential. Paying attention to your thoughts and feelings is the starting place for expanding this awareness.
The following self-inquiry practice can be used any time you have a sense that conditioned modes of thinking and feeling are limiting your creative drive or inspiration.
STEP 1: Bring to mind a creative project or goal that you are either working on now or planning to begin in the near future.
STEP 2: Are you experiencing any challenging or difficult thoughts and feelings related to this project or goal? Are these thoughts and feelings stopping you from taking action or diminishing your confidence? If so, briefly describe them:
STEP 3: Spend ten to fifteen minutes reflecting on the following questions and writing your answers in your journal:

Are these thoughts and feelings hand-me-downs, or are they originating with me?

Am I being loyal to thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that I have outgrown?
Am I willing to give up old perceptions, feelings, and attitudes when something more valuable shows up?

This practice will remind you to respond creatively rather than out of habit. It can empower you to realize that you have choice where, before, no choices seemed to be available. Not long ago, I received a call from a colleague with whom I was involved in a writing project. We had been facing challenges that threatened to derail the project. My knee-jerk reaction was to avoid his call, but after remembering this practice, I realized that my concerns about the situation were hand-me-downs from the past. Was I willing to give them up? Yes, I was. I picked up the phone and dealt with the situation quickly, which led to a positive outcome.

If you decide to keep certain hand-me-downs, it’s not necessarily a problem. There is nothing good or bad about making that choice; just make sure it works for you. Also, you will be more attuned to the “something more valuable” from Step 3 as you become clearer about your values in the chapters ahead. One of the fundamental truths of creativity is that we can’t be valuable creators unless we have clear values. Paying attention to your values on an ongoing basis increases your creative intelligence.
CHAPTER 2

Into the Wilds of Creative Imagining

Do not seek the because—in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
—ANAÏS NIN, HENRY AND JUNE

I was in line at my neighborhood store to get a coffee. Next to me stood a man whose wife was buying a couple of kiddie pails for the beach. He told me they were from Seattle but had just driven down to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara. He referenced a tragedy that had taken place the previous week: a young man had gone on a rampage near the University of California campus at Santa Barbara, wounding thirteen people and killing six others.

I thought he had said that a friend’s child was one of those slain in the attack.
“No, it was my child,” he said.
“We’re going to take her ashes and scatter them in the Pacific . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he continued, “but it helps to say it.”
I was unglued. I saw my conscious mind grasping for a logical framework to make sense of what this grieving father had told me. But below the level of my rational mind, I felt something else. I knew something.
His pain and my pain are connected. His ability to love and mine are connected.
Below my logic and reason, something more true in me had been triggered—an unfamiliar intelligence.
There is nothing logical about it.
Our creative lives are always a back-and-forth between what makes sense to the logical mind and something more, beyond the borderline of structured imagination.

THE IQ EFFECT—OUR LOVE AFFAIR WITH LOGIC AND REASON

Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, is a numerical score based on standardized tests that attempt to measure human intelligence by focusing on our cognitive abilities. Yet we know that there is much more to intelligence than verbal and mathematical abilities that are measured by fixed and graded tests. Although we put ourselves through the rigors of such testing, we don’t really like to be reduced to a few numbers.
The poet Walt Whitman wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
I believe that the multitudes he was referring to are intelligences—a plurality of capacities; dimensions of self that are diverse, colorful, and sometimes paradoxical in nature.
Besides logic and reason (the favored tools of conventional wisdom), other kinds of intelligence include emotional, empathetic, musical, athletic, intuitive, and social. Some forms of intelligence relate to aspects of consciousness: the child, adolescent, and adult self; the higher self; the future self; the mystical self; the subconscious; the unconscious; and unity consciousness.
Most often we live in the world as a tightly defined, limited “me”—someone who is bound by conditioned ideas that get expressed as:
“This is how I think.”
“This is what I often feel.”
“This is what I normally do.”
“This is who I must be.”
But when we relate to ourselves as a synthesis of many intelligences, we can begin to sense the awesome creative power that is available. We are much more than the sum of our parts. Yet understanding that can be difficult because of our loyalty to logic and reason. The rational mind can create a false boundary between our understanding and the wildness and freedom of our imagination.

FROM IQ TO CQ—INTRODUCING THE CREATIVITY QUOTIENT

IQ is one measure of our ability to process our experience through logic and reason, but other creative tools exist beyond our cognitive abilities. Those capacities include sensing, being, and knowing, which I refer to as CQ—our Creativity Quotient. These are gifts and talents we possess that are keys to a broader ability to conceive and perceive—whether or not we are familiar with them.
Your Creativity Quotient is fluid and dynamic, flowing and ever changing. CQ describes your personal relationship with “the first principles of things,” which is the primordial creativity of higher consciousness and spirituality.
The following quiz will help you recognize the territory of your Creativity Quotient.
What would you do or be?—The creativity quotient quiz

Consider the following questions, and check the box with the answer that most closely depicts your style of response. While you will likely relate to both answers, choose the one that is most instinctive.

You learn that an unexpected financial windfall may come your way.
☐ A: You think of all the reasons it will or will not happen.
☐ B: You feel the wonder of having resources show up in surprising ways.
You are at a show where a magician performs a stunning feat of magic.
☐ A: You try to figure out the trick.
☐ B: You get lost in the spell of the magic.
You find a tiny flower in the desert.
☐ A: You wonder how it survived the scorching sun.
☐ B: You admire its fragile beauty.
You are blindfolded and given a food to taste and a scent to smell.
☐ A: You try to identify them.
☐ B: You experience them sensually.
A friend or family member tells you about a personal crisis.
☐ A: You look for solutions to fix their problem.
☐ B: You listen attentively with empathy.
You are pondering your future and where you want to be in five years.
☐ A: You write down your goals and the action steps you will need to take in order to achieve them.
☐ B: You dream about what you will be doing and with whom; you imagine how you want to feel.
You are invited to collaborate on a project that would stretch you creatively, requiring you to utilize new tools and processes, thereby stepping beyond your comfort zone.
☐ A: You weigh the pros and cons and think about the repercussions if you fail.
☐ B: You sit quietly and tune in to your feelings before proceeding.
The nightly news program reports a new uprising of violence in another country.
☐ A: You push the mute button on the remote control and go raid the refrigerator.
☐ B: You notice that your stomach is in a knot and take a breath to release the tension.
You wake up in the morning with a sore throat, achy muscles, and feeling like you haven’t slept a wink.
☐ A: You recount the people you’ve been around over the past few days and try to figure out where you caught the bug.
☐ B: You know you’ve been overdoing it and stressed, and sense that you need a break.
Out of the blue, your sweetheart puts his or her arms around you and gives you a warm embrace.
☐ A: You wonder what they want.
☐ B: You take it in, and feel your heart soften.
Tally your answers: Note the total number of As and Bs. Your B answers provide a clear picture of perceiving and relating that points toward CQ.

THE COST OF IGNORING OUR CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

Tragic things occur when we dismiss creative intelligence in favor of logic and reason alone. Our personal imagination collapses, for one thing, and hope and vision atrophy. Vision is what creates the expansive boundaries of what is possible and hope is the bridge that can take us there.
We rely solely on conventional wisdom, societal norms, and popular culture to provide us with our understanding of the world. Instead of creative imagination, we participate in a kind of groupthink. Our dreams atrophy. We lose the confidence to imagine successful outcomes, and set our sights and expectations lower and lower. Dogma takes the place of authentic dialogue. Tune in to talk radio and you’ll have the picture. There is no room for nuance or complexity. Pundits speak from a polarized sense of the issues, and no one is spacious enough or present enough to listen to another point of view. In all of this, we lose a sense of compassion, understanding, and empathy. This lack of imagination is at the root of the great crises in our world today. When our personal imagination collapses and our creative intelligence withers on the vine, we are left clinging to positions that leave no room for innovation and discovery.
INTO A NEW WORLD
We are at a crossroads. We can survive and thrive by learning to step from an outmoded system that values absolutes, predictable outcomes, and guarantees into a more powerful, fluid one. This is at the heart of why we develop our creative intelligence—in order to build the relationship with aspects of our intelligence beyond logic and reason.
We don’t lose sight of logic and reason, but simultaneously transcend and include them. We make a quantum leap, like jumping from a game of checkers to 3-D chess.
Some people in the public eye point to their inner life as an important source of creative inspiration. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan says that meditation is a part of his daily routine. It’s not logical, but his internal practices help him to see his mind as an ally. Actor Angelina Jolie talks about experiencing meditative moments in everyday things. In a 2012 NBA playoff game, star basketball player LeBron James famously took a time-out to refocus and shift his attention to his inner state.
That is creative intelligence in action.
Priming the Pump of Your Creative Imagination

Find a place where you can sit quietly for a few minutes. Settle in and take a few slow, deep breaths. Bring to mind a project that you are either in the midst of right now or one that you would like to initiate in the future, perhaps a dream project.

Take a few moments to close your eyes and allow your project to fully enter into your awareness. The first part of this exercise is an opportunity to creatively interact with your project through the senses:
Smell. Smell can stir memory, including the memory of creative dreams that might have been seeded in your consciousness long ago. If your project had a smell or fragrance, what would you imagine it might be? Would it smell like wildflowers? Freshly printed pages of a new book? Exotic spices from a distant land? The subtle fragrance of your fiancé’s perfume or cologne?
Touch. If you could physically touch your project, what would it feel like? What are its textural qualities? Smooth, bumpy, or silky? Is it layered and thick or paper thin? Is it warm, cool, or moist?
Taste. If you could taste your project, what flavors or taste sensations would you experience? Put your tongue on it. Is it spicy? Sweet? Does it wake you up like a squeeze of lemon? Does it have one distinct flavor, or is it a balance of many?
Sound. If your project had a sound, what would it be? Is it a melody? A rustling breeze? A crashing wave? A symphonic crescendo? A hum? Is the sound loud or soft?

Directory: 2017
2017 -> 2017 afoCo Landmark Scholarship Program
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2017 -> Kansas 4-h shooting Sports Committee Application
2017 -> Astronomy (C) Teams will demonstrate an understanding of stellar evolution and Type Ia supernova. Bottle Rocket (B)
2017 -> Alabama Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel College Scholarship Competition
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